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Favorite RTS Game

Azza

Having a discussion with a friend recently about the best RTS games and lamenting the fact that outside of Starcraft 2 it seems to be a very niche genre now.

Played many great RTS games over the years, Total Annihilation, the original CnC's, AOE 2, Dawn of War but I think my overall favorite is Company of Heroes.

I'll admit CnC had enjoyable and camp cutscenes and Starcraft 2 has hands down the best story and presentation in any RTS but overall COH is my favorite.

Hard to describe why. At the time in 2006 it had the best graphics in any RTS ever and still looks really great to this day. The attention to detail is amazing, not just visually (tank shells deflecting off tanks) but the audio as well with reams of really funny dialogue from your disgruntled soldiers.

As a single player game it was solid without being amazing but it was multiplayer where the game shined best.

The multiplayer while never the best balance had a great amount of depth and the units where quite diverse. The factions where polar opposites, the Americans being all about versatility while the Axis where more rigid and about role specialization. The territory system worked well and the concept of cutting off supply was excellent and wish it was done in more games. The use of cover and the different types of cover was also pretty unique and resulted in some great infantry battles as you sought to use your troops to the fullest potential in the early game. Had 3 phases (early game infantry dominated), mid game (the vehicle phase) end game(tank phase+ specialist troops) which gave you enough time to play with each unit and know their strengths and weaknesses. Keeping your early units alive to mid/late game could obviously tip the balance, but it was a constant battle of unit preservation and the need for map control (i.e resources).

Played it for years, and while I enjoyed the sequel it didn't have the same spark and didn't hold my attention for long.

Anyway's what your favorite RTS?

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Dave_The_Sheep

M!Ck^ wrote: »

Never play Dawn of War II, is it really that bad?

I loved the first one.

DOW and DOWII are completely different games. One's base building and point domination. The other is squad based tactical combat, point domination not really required. Just handy respawns. Multiplayer though, DoWII doesn't come close to the first one.

I loved both. I've replayed the DoWII campaigns several times, from the original all through Chaos Rising and Retribution. Well worth a look.

Sarky

DoW 2 has much better writing, visuals, cover/terrain use, wargear upgrades and general polish. Also I think better balanced. I also hate base building so I dig the general lack of it.

jill_valentine

DOW's requisition points system got the balance perfect for me. Base building - which I like, tbf - was important yes, but the game also demanded that you stayed mobile and aggressive or all the base building in the world wouldn't save you. DoW2 was a huge disappointment to me, and there was an awful, awful push for microtransactions that the previous title and its expansions cast shade on. I haven't picked it back up in forever, whereas I still jump in and out of Winter Assault.

Zillah

DoW 1 online play got a boost recently with its launch on Steam. Really fun game, never cared for 2 all that much. Fun single player but the multi isn't a touch on it.

Gbear

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

[Deleted User]

Fired up Generals this evening, still as brilliant as I remember. Having loads of fun in the USA campaign on Brutal.

For anyone that's interested, I followed these guides to get it running on modern spec;

http://www.wsgf.org/dr/command-conquer-generals

http://www.commandandconquer.com/en/news/362/running-cc-generals-on-windows-7

Azza

jill_valentine wrote: »

DOW's requisition points system got the balance perfect for me. Base building - which I like, tbf - was important yes, but the game also demanded that you stayed mobile and aggressive or all the base building in the world wouldn't save you. DoW2 was a huge disappointment to me, and there was an awful, awful push for microtransactions that the previous title and its expansions cast shade on. I haven't picked it back up in forever, whereas I still jump in and out of Winter Assault.

Dow 2 and its first expansion had no DLC, the 2nd expansion did alright.
Dow 2 was basically an attempt by Relic to make Dow play like Company of Heroes.

It was also mean't to attract none RTS players by removing base building, what they believed at the time was a major turn off for many people who don't like the genre.

XsApollo

Generals and Zero Hour.
My first ever PC game and Only one I played continuously .
Saw my bro playing generals one day and gave it a crack and was hooked.
Spent 4 solid years playing online.
Tried every other RTS and found nothing could come close to the feel and fun.

Pity they cancelled Generals 2, was stoked when I saw it was getting made and then they pulled it.

ShadowHearth

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

DOW and DOWII are completely different games. One's base building and point domination. The other is squad based tactical combat, point domination not really required. Just handy respawns. Multiplayer though, DoWII doesn't come close to the first one.

I loved both. I've replayed the DoWII campaigns several times, from the original all through Chaos Rising and Retribution. Well worth a look.

I loved DoW 2 original one. I have played A LOT multiplayer of it and it was Fierce fun.
It got way out of hands with expansions. I did not liked changes to tyranids too

Zillah

Gbear wrote: »

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

I think it looks quite nice with everything on maximum. It's up to you if you really want to try and get into it. The main appeal is multiplayer, and there are nine teams, each with quite different play styles and completely different tech trees, so it takes a lot to get good at. Absolutely cracking fun if you can play a LAN game with some friends.

EDIT: Obviously you should be playing Soulstorm, the last expansion, it does a lot of rebalancing and adds two new races. They're probably the least popular races (although I quite like them), but the expansion really just fills out the game nicely. A bunch of stuff was overpowered and skewed the races in the earlier versions.

Sephiroth_dude

XsApollo wrote: »

Generals and Zero Hour.
My first ever PC game and Only one I played continuously .
Saw my bro playing generals one day and gave it a crack and was hooked.
Spent 4 solid years playing online.
Tried every other RTS and found nothing could come close to the feel and fun.

Pity they cancelled Generals 2, was stoked when I saw it was getting made and then they pulled it.

Completely forgot about general and zero hour, how I loved both.

Nody

Azza wrote: »

Dow 2 and its first expansion had no DLC, the 2nd expansion did alright.
Dow 2 was basically an attempt by Relic to make Dow play like Company of Heroes.

It was also mean't to attract none RTS players by removing base building, what they believed at the time was a major turn off for many people who don't like the genre.

And utterly failed alienating the people from DoW1 while not getting enough people for DoW2 to be worth a follow up...

Shiminay

Since we were talking about it, PC Gamer has a 10 year anniversary catch up with one of the DOW devs: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/dawn-of-war-retrospective-ten-years-of-war-in-the-41st-millennium/

Revoker88

After reading this thread decided to plump for the CnC Ultimate Collection,17 of the games in one

Only €9.73 here for all 17

http://www.kinguin.net/category/1000/command-conquer-the-ultimate-collection-origin-key/

Zillah

EoinHef wrote: »

After reading this thread decided to plump for the CnC Ultimate Collection,17 of the games in one

Only €9.73 here for all 17

http://www.kinguin.net/category/1000/command-conquer-the-ultimate-collection-origin-key/

Ewww, origin.

Revoker88

Zillah wrote: »

Ewww, origin.

Might be in a minority but ive no problem with origin,fast downloads,automatic updates,and recently,free games aswell.

Guess some people are harder to please:)

ShadowHearth

Zillah wrote: »

Ewww, origin.

I would not be buying games on origin, but other then that, its grand for basics. Still beats fecking uPlay!

Gbear

Speaking of DOW, I've tried to give it another go.

Has anyone had any luck getting it to work on W8.1?

jill_valentine

Gbear wrote: »

I bought a DOW bundle in some Steam sale.

Loved 2 and Chaos rising.

1 just looked really dated. Considering it's only a 2004 game it looks really poor. I found it too ugly and unmanageable to play.

Is it worth persevering with?

Well, I aged with it, so I can't really say.

They look fine to me, I preferred the big blocky proportions to the DOW2 tiny-head guys.

I do think there's more depth and variety to it though, it's got the same magic as Medieval: Total War in that it's even fun to play while in the process of losing horribly.

Thargor

Great post RopeDrink (Is that a new name? I never saw you around Gaming or Galway...), must investigate some of these mods, I remember Dark Omen blowing my brother and I away even though we thought it was just a boobie prize in one of those "10 Smash Hits" boxes of random pc games you used to get back in the day, absolutely brilliant RTS even though we'd never heard of Warhammer back then.

The first one was just as good imo even though I played them in the wrong order, Shadow of the Horned Rat:

What a pair of games, by far the most satisfying cavalry action and charges you could get years before the Total War games, same for the artillery and cross/long bow regiments, building up your army, collecting relics, fcuking up whole enemy regiments with just your wizards, Im going to say they're my favourites aswell instead of Supreme Commander II.

Sarky

Ropey's from the Long Long Ago. Tell us a story Grampa Ropedrink!

killanena

Here is a list of a few RTS games I love, Any marked with a * means I am still actively playing it and will play with anyone who wants to

Rise of nations
Warcraft 3
Age of Empires 2 (HD*+The Forgotten*)
Company of Heros 1
Company of heros 2** (Haven't played it yet but I have it)
Total war series*
Warhammer 40k Dawn of war 1* (have to use hamachi to play now)
Planetary Annihilation* (Only played a game or two, So still getting the hang of it)
Men of war*
Men of war Assault squad 1 & 2*
Crusader kings 2 (Sadly never finish a multiplayer game as its too time consuming)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I really want to play more dawn of war if anyone is interested. PM me or add IrishRook on steam

Gbear

I've managed to get DOW The Dark Crusade working.

I really do love that sort of Risk/RTS combo.

They had a version of it in C&C 3 as well.

Thargor

Yeah its great, good challenge aswell, some armies are next to impossible to dig out, Chaos held the bonus territory for increased production and it took me ages to drive them out of it one time, same for the Necron home sector, felt like I was playing a human enemy. Loved upgrading the commander aswell, especially the Tau and Necron.

Dave_The_Sheep

For anyone who has yet to play DoW\DoW2 or any of the extras, they're on sale at GamersGate this week.

http://www.gamersgate.com/campaign/34/warhammer-midweek

Given what some said earlier in the thread, might be of interest.

€14.50 for all the DoWII stuff is quite good. Includes all expansions and DLC, I think.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-W40KDOW2GMC/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-ii-grand-master-collection

Automan

Populous the beginning, one of my all time favourite RTS.

Homeworld Cataclysm, in my opinion the best of the 3 homeworlds series.

Hostile waters, like an updated version of carrier command but better.

Sacrifice, is an odd one, excellent game,I was not 100% if it was an RTS till I googled it.
From WIKIA:
"IGN considered Sacrifice the best strategy game of 2000. The European Computer Trade Show dubbed it the Best PC Game in its show. It was also one of PC Gamer Magazine's Top 100 Games for eight consecutive years."

weisses

I played most of the rts games mentioned on this thread, but I also had loads of fun with the supreme commander games ...Not mentioned often here, also a big fan of the homeworld series ...Got the original big carton boxes the game was in saved for the mancave

Kiith

Sacrifice was excellent. Brilliant story, with some excellent voice acting.

Gbear

weisses wrote: »

I played most of the rts games mentioned on this thread, but I also had loads of fun with the supreme commander games ...Not mentioned often here, also a big fan of the homeworld series ...Got the original big carton boxes the game was in saved for the mancave

Never got the appeal of supreme commander.

Too long, too passive.

The units, other than the ubers and some of the artillery, are laughably weak. It always felt like there was too much of an emphasis on base defences.

Automan wrote: »

Populous the beginning, one of my all time favourite RTS.

It felt like the technology was years ahead of it's time.

I used to turn the cheats on and just go ballistic making volcanoes all over the place, or spawning a dozen of those dragon yokes.

Thargor

Gbear wrote: »

Never got the appeal of supreme commander.

Too long, too passive.

The units, other than the ubers and some of the artillery, are laughably weak. It always felt like there was too much of an emphasis on base defences.

Im a base defence whore so thats why II is one of my all time favs